You Don't Need Me
by Miss Poison Pen
Summary: Angie often finds herself staring at Peggy nowadays. It's not that she's daydreaming about her so much as she's trying to divine all her secrets. And Peggy is still keeping secrets, Angie knows.


V1.01

Angie often finds herself staring at Peggy nowadays. It's not that she's daydreaming about her so much as she's trying to divine all her secrets. And Peggy _is_ still keeping secrets, Angie knows.

Sure, she's honest about where she works now. Sure, when she leaves in the evenings—few though they are—she throws a parting "I'll be out late working the field," over her shoulder with instructions to not wait up. Angie usually does, anyway, relieved when Peggy is unscathed and tied up in knots when she's hurt.

Still, for all that Angie knows about her friend, she can't help feeling like she hardly knows her at all.

So she stares, hoping that the fabric of the universe will rip open and dump all those secrets at her feet.

"Why don't you tell me the truth?" Angie blurts that day in the sitting room. She's agitated when Peggy doesn't even look away from her book.

"I _do_ tell you the truth."

"Right. But you're not always honest with me."

A smirk that Angie will probably never understand flits across Peggy's face and the book finally closes. "You're precious to me. That means I have to protect you."

"From the truth?" Angie's tone is flat.

Peggy pins her with an intense look. "From those who would _use you_ for the truth. From those who would _hurt_ _you_ for the truth. I don't want that for you."

Angie takes a moment and swings her legs over the arm of the sofa. "Gee, English. Sounds like you really care," she says to the ceiling as she lays across the cushions.

When Angie looks back to Peggy, she sees such fondness in the other woman's eyes that she can't help the sudden and oddly pleasant flush of her cheeks.

"I do," Peggy tells her simply, but Angie feels the weight of the words. "That's why you're better off not knowing."

"You know," ventures the waitress, "If you feel that strongly for me…I may end up getting hurt anyway. You know…as leverage."

A dark look crosses the agent's features. "The notion had occurred to me," she admits.

"So why not just be honest with me?"

"…I don't want you to worry." Peggy is stalling, Angie can tell.

"I worry anyway," she prods. She knows she's close to one of Peggy's secrets. She can practically taste it.

"You don't have to be a part of…_this_," the Englishwoman whispers with a sad smile that makes Angie's heart squeeze. "And I don't know that I want you to be if…"

Angie makes the effort to sit up and study Peggy for a moment. The face she sees is broken—the face she usually sees when Peggy is talking or reading about Captain America (she still hasn't gotten the whole story about _that_)—and it takes her breath away that she's the cause of that face. Peggy worries so much for her safety that she would rather shut Angie out of her life than see her hurt!

"You don't need _this_," Peggy tells her quietly, vaguely gesturing about herself.

The unspoken "You don't need _me_," that Angie can tell her friend means practically punches her in the gut and leaves her breathless.

Then, with a sudden determination she never thought she would have, Angie pushes herself from the couch and crosses the room to Peggy.

Those brown eyes turn to her as she takes Peggy's face in her hands and softly, gently guides their lips together. It's a soft, but sweet caress of lips, and Angie is a little surprised to feel Peggy open to her almost immediately. It's tempting, to delve into that openness and kiss everything away, but Angie still has more to say, so she pulls back and stares into Peggy's eyes.

"Angie—"

"I need you," she whispers, cutting Peggy off. "_I need you_. Don't ever forget that."

Angie can feel delicate finger-tips against her elbows. They're trembling, she notes, and presses a kiss to Peggy's chin.

"I'm a part of _this_, whatever _this_ is—whatever _this_ becomes." Another light kiss to those red, red lips. "That's my choice, Peggy."

Angie sees the moment Peggy breaks and watches her eyes well up a moment later. She isn't quite sure what had set it off, but she holds her all the same, and whispers reassurances into her ear. The young actress is baffled, but she allows the woman in her arms to cry around her smiles and to laugh her way around the tears.

"Stubborn," she hears at one point, the word muffled against her dampened shirt. Angie merely grumbles something about the pot calling the kettle black and holds Peggy closer.


End file.
